Leaving the ruins behind
by ShelbyStark
Summary: *RECONSTRUCTED* Sansa and Sandor embark on a journey to the North.
1. Chapter 1

The man yanked at the back of her skirts with such a startling violence that she almost succumbed to the force of it.

"We've got to go, bird. Time's upon us."

She only nodded at this, and then dissolved into the darkness of the room; only flits of her were seen on the green shards of the walls where the wildfire had reflected itself upon them, and he watched for her in them. She returned to his side not a few moments later with her thickest woollen coat, two worn dresses and some jewels in her milky arms.

"And what do you expect your gems will do, girl, lighten the load?" He laughed raspingly, his tone cutting into her like a knife.

"I expect we'll need to fund our travels, I was thinking we could sell these on the road." Her voice ever inquisitive with the need for his approval and for not to seem always like a stupid little bird. The way she always was to him, she assumed.

He was taken aback slightly by her thinking. "Aye, that'll do well for us to sell. Although I still have my winnings from your father's tourney a few months back." He did not mean for her to sell her valuables. But then again, they would just be looted out if they stayed here, better to put them to good use.

Sansa frowned once more at that comment. At the word father. _That was back when I really was stupid._ _Oh, father, I am sorry._

She looked for the doll she had thrown onto the bed in fright, just after she realised that none other than the Hound was sitting on her clothing trunk, a blind drunkenness surrounding him and humming slightly to his own discarded tune of grunting and groaning and picked it up and held it tight, mindlessly apologising to it. She thought back again to when her father had went all the way into the village to have this doll hand made for her, for his daughter, and she threw it back in his face. And all because she lied for Joffrey. All for a fool's idea of sorry, sickening love. For nothing. And now even Lady was not here, for her. For her selfishness. _Not even_ _Arya…_

Now she loved the doll like nothing more, a memory of him.

She blinked away the wateriness threatening to spill from her sleep depraved eyes and looked up at him. "You were very brave that day, and you will be brave tonight, as you have been. And you will protect me from harm."

"I won't let anybody touch any one of those copper hairs on your sodden head, little bird." He looked at her with some distorted determination. It crossed with anger, but not untoward her, she knew. "Now, we have to leave."


	2. Chapter 2

Earlier that day, Sansa sat perched on her window, and looking down at the doll she had clutched in her hand. She looked at the dolls face, so intricately designed, shiny eyed and carefully painted, innocent and unphased. She looked into the painted black eyes of the doll that her father had specially made for her and looked for a glimpse of comfort and reassurance. They stared back at her. Her eyes were watering and bloodshot. The dolls were hollow and empty. Sansa started to feel angry and hurt that she once loved such awful things, that she once thought they comforted her at sleep time, and how she thought they were her friends as a child, when the other girls were away. She looked and she hated it; It reminded her of just how alone she was. She got angry at her father for thinking that she could appreciate such a thing; he must have thought her airy and stupid all of her life.

She started to feel a rise in her throat and perched the doll onto the bed next to her. Her Kings Landing bed. _"There," _she thought_ "Now you can sit on a bed of lies, too."_

She sat in her chair in front of the vanity mirror before her and called in Shae to brush out her hair. It reminded her of her mother, her sweet, soothing mother, and she felt a little better. Her mother always had the right words to say to her no matter what the situation; it was as though she just knew her, inside and out. Her auburn tresses flowing as Shae gently untangled them gave her a sense of pride for being her mother's daughter and these hairs on her head were a stamp of that honour. She missed her terribly. Looking in the mirror, she saw no signs of her father anywhere on her body. Her eyes were Tully eyes, her cheekbones her Tully structure, her bee stung lips were plump and youthful, not grave and bevelled like Stark mouths. And her hair, her beautiful hair; a Tully through and though. Her father was nowhere to be seen.

She looked over at the doll and started to weep silently. "_It's the only thing I have of him," _she thought sorrowfully whilst trying so hard not so startle Shae of her tears. Suddenly she stood up and ushered her away, her locks still half-tangled and a bit bristly on the edges, and she padded over to the doll with a look of amour and despair on her face. She picked it up and held it so tight that she almost crushed it beneath her weight. She could no longer hold her emotions and broke down into a heap on the floor nuzzling the doll into her face and crying sorrys and I should haves and I will never forgets into the hollow air. She loved her father, she loved him so much.

"_I will never forget. The North will remember, family, duty, honour."_


End file.
